Ten years ago in New York, on the top floor of a tenement-house, in a miserable room without furniture, a dying woman lay on a pallet, in the last stage of consumption.  A charitable lady who visited her asked what she could do for her.  The dying woman replied:  “My hours are numbered, but how can I die in peace when night and day I hear the beating by her mother-in-law of the unhappy little girl who lives in the room next to mine.”  And, in fact, for a month her heart had been torn by the cries of this child, Mary Ellen, kept in confinement by this brute.  Much moved by this recital, the visitor felt impelled to demand the interference of the police.  They told her this was impracticable unless she was able to furnish proof of her allegation.  She knew the facts only upon hearsay, and only in case a misdemeanor were actually proved would it be possible for the police to interfere as she desired.  The charitable feelings of the lady would not permit her to stop here.  She made inquiries among benevolent societies.  But here again she experienced a check.  The societies could not receive the child except upon legal commitment by an order of court.  And charitable persons with the most benevolent tendencies, being consulted on this difficulty, confessed themselves at a loss to suggest a remedy in the case, and declared that it was dangerous to interfere between parents and children; that in so doing one is liable to become involved in inextricable difficulties, since the heads of the family are the best guardians of their children.  However, the sorrowful appeal of the dying woman echoed continually in the ears of her whose charitable aid had been implored.  She resolved upon a supreme effort to rescue this child.  She sought Mr. Henry Bergh, a man who has never been deaf to a cry of despair, and who has devoted his life to the protection of animals.  Mr. Bergh considered the life of a child to be quite as valuable as that of a beast, and gave it as his opinion that the tribunals should be appealed to.  A warrant was immediately procured and the child was produced in court, its face covered with horrible wounds.  A pair of scissors with which these wounds had been inflicted were produced.  The facts in the case caused a profound sensation in the court and throughout the city.  The mother-in-law was arrested, found guilty, and the little girl was taken from her hands to receive an education which has rendered her an elegant and accomplished young woman.

Humble beginnings, which it will be well for us to bear in remembrance for the confusion of our pride!  It is from the protection of animals that has sprung, in New York, that of the child.  And, when we contemplate the great number of societies in the United States,—­the Humane Society of Saratoga, of Bangor, of Keene, of Taunton, of Connecticut, the Western Pennsylvania, the Tennessee Society, those of Nashville, of Cleveland, of Cincinnati, of Indianapolis, of Chicago, of Peoria, of Sangamon, of Quincy, of